


A Skirt

by Teawithmagician



Series: Billy & Goody [4]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Angst, Codependency, Emotionally Repressed, F/M, Genderbending, Het, Identity Reveal, Internalized Misogyny, Period-Typical Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 09:09:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8838760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teawithmagician/pseuds/Teawithmagician
Summary: Billy is tired of pretending, Emma Cullen is tired of being afraid, but Goodnight Robicheaux still believes he can escape his fate by being mean with the ones who care for him the most.





	

**Author's Note:**

> *fem!Billy  
> *period typical sexism and fear of the system  
> *Goody is no nice guy. Sorry.

Billy gives Goody her hand, and he takes it silently. You can't talk much lying in the bushes, looking into the rifle. Billy looks at Goody at silently says “it's enough” and he obeys. He knows he has enough too.

Everyone's too drunk to see them holding hands. Sam can, but Sam knows. Billy doesn't know if Goody told Sam, he knows Billy will be angry if he starts telling everyone who she is. Some things are more convenient for a man than for a woman.

It is and is has always been.

They get up the stairs, Goody's following. His arms were shaky when he held the rifle. Billy saw his face, it was ghostly white. She saw sweat on his temples, and when he looked at Billy, he looked through her. 

Faraday saw it too. He was angry, and Billy told him the rifle jammed. He needn't know.

“This is the last time I am lucky. I will be lucky no more,” Goody says. 

“No,” Billy shakes her head. 

At the top of the staircase, she sees the redhead woman who pays them to fight for her town. She sees Billy and Goody holding hand and Billy unclenches fingers, but Goody holds tight.

The woman nods and lets them pass through. There will be talks, Billy thinks. There are always talks. Two men or a man and a Chinese slut. Billy is not afraid, she is just sick and tired of it. For all her life she has to be someone else because she herself is not enough.

Billy opens the screechy door to the room. She can see the dark streets of the town from behind the window. Billy doesn't think she dies here. She survived the camp fever and the railroad, she saw things much worse than dying. But she thinks what Cullen pays is not enough for the risk.

Still, she stays because stays Goody.

“What we lost in the fire, we'll find in the ashes,” Goody says thoughtfully. He sits on the bed, outstretching one leg. Billy stands with her back to the door and looks at him silently.

“I am afraid, Billy,” Goody says, looking into the wall. “You know I am, and has always been. I've seen death and it was terrifying. I've done things I regret. If there is any luck in this world, my luck is over. I used my second chance and I've heard, I swear I've heard it.”

“We'll get paid,” Billy remains. “We'll get paid not enough but still better than the last times.”

“You can think only about the money, can you?”

“You don't play for the game, you play if you get paid,” Billy answers sharply. “That's what you always said.”

“There must be limits,” Goody shouts, his face glowing red. 

“You took Chisolm's deal. That's a limit.”

Goody breathes heavily, jerking the collar of his shirt. A nacre button comes off and jumps on the floor with a quiet knocking. His face is not glowing red already, large red spots run on his cheeks and nose. 

“I ain't going to make it,” Goody says. “If I hear it once again I will know it going to be other here, in this double-damned town. You can't think further, but I can. If I hear it once again, we are leaving. Do you know why we are leaving, Bai Ling?”

“No, I don't,” Billy answers, looking down at her crossed arms. She doesn't remember the time she crossed it. She was listening to the light sound of steps outside, in the passage. She knows the pace.

“Because in two days, three days, it doesn't really matter, everyone's here will be dead.”

Goody's face turns gray and the sound of the steps goes off. She must be standing opposite the door and listening, Billy thinks. Billy wonders if she tells Chisolm in the morning. That must be bad for his to lose both Goody and Billy.

Cullen thinks they've suffered enough in this town, but they've never lived in the railroad camp. The work was bone-breaking for the adults, and it was deadly for a teen. It hasn't been better back in the land Billy doesn't really remember. 

When Billy thinks of Cullen's, she thinks she despises her. Cullen had more than Billy had at her age and still lost it. Billy never tells her opinion as no one's asking, but she looks and the townsmen, helpless either with a gun or a knife and thinks they are not going to make it.

They are soft and scared. They cry with terror when seeing Bogue's men dead, they blame Cullen for this. Cullen stands tall. She is as scared as they are, but she is not that kind soft. This town has a woman who takes a rifle she can't shoot and tells men to go to the war.

Billy thinks she...she likes it. A woman doesn't pretend to be a man but acts like a man. Townsmen are angry but they don't tear her in pieces and don't kick her away. Billy asks herself how it can be. Cullen is not a daredevil, she holds a gun like a hen, but they listen to her.

Maybe because of Chisolm, or maybe because deep inside they've got enough of Bogue, too. 

“What happens next?”

“Death that's what happens next,” Goody snaps and Billy turns around swiftly, clicks the handle and opens the door. The hardly lit passage is empty. There is a corner before the staircase there a woman thin enough can stand with her back to the wall not being noticed.

Billy gives the corner a look and closes the door.

“Does Little Mrs. Cullen eavesdrop?” Goody asks. He searches for a cigarette and snaps his fingers, outstretching a hand. Billy closes the door, looking at Goody with the corner of her eye.

Billy is so accustomed to that gesture. If Goody wants a cigarette, she gives him one. If Goody needs his flask, she gives him one. If Goody needs a reason to Faraday to explain why he stands pale as snow with a rifle dancing in his hands, Billy gives him one.

That must be really convenient to have Billy as a lover. To have the one who always follows you or leads you away from your trouble. To have the one who is always at your side.

Billy must be drunk because she throws the pack of the cigarettes on the bed with the matches stuck behind the paper. She walks out of the room, heading downstairs. Billy hears Vasquez singing. He has a low deep voice and it's the first time she hears him singing in Spanish.

Emma Cullen walks from behind the corner, her hands folded over the skirt. She is pale, but she looks resolute. Her lips are pursed, she looks down when walking in short vigorous steps. When Cullen catches up with Billy, she raises her head up and boldly looks Billy into the eyes.

“If you want to leave, leave then,” Cullen says. Her eyes are frosty blue.

Billy shrugs her shoulders. 

“Can you speak?” Cullen asks. She is scared to death and has nothing left to lose, or she wouldn't talk to Billy that way. Billy feels like a wolf being attacked by a sheep.

Billy looks at Cullen from the top to the toes, slowly exploring her clothes. Cullen blushes and clenches her fists, but Billy doesn't want her body. She would, but Goody sticks out of her mind. She hates how he does that, living in her head, making her feel like she belongs.

“Do you have a skirt?” Billy asks in a while.

“What?” 

“Give me one,” Billy says. “I want to wear a skirt.”

“What are you talking about?” Cullen looks at Billy uncomprehendingly.

“Chisolm told you women's clothes don't fit fighting. He was right.”

Billy unbuttons her vest and starts to unbutton the shirt. Cullen looks at her with terror, but she is not running away. Pulling the shirt away from the trousers, Billy shows Cullen her bandaged breast. There's a scar on Billy's belly, Cullen looks at it too. She must know what does it mean.

“Women's clothes don't fit for a fight. Women do.” 

Cullen takes a step away, and when a step forward. She stares at Billy's breath with a long, absent gaze. When she raises her eyes to Billy, Billy is ready to face her. She knows it is not going to be alright, but she doesn't care.

“I think I have a skirt. A dark blue one,” says Cullen quietly. “And a blouse.”

Billy nodes and buttons her shirt. Cullen watches her without saying a word, and when Billy put her shirt back in the trousers and goes to the staircase, she had a feeling Cullen is still standing there, watching her leaving.


End file.
